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Hackers Grip German Website Of Google

World's biggest and most trusted search engine 'Google' was brought to a halt early on 23 January 2007. Apparently, the German site of the search engine was cut off from the World Wide Web after some scammers hijacked access rights to its 'Google.de' domain address.

German surfers trying to enter the site rather saw a web page that was hosted on the servers of Germany's 'Goneo', a tiny online service provider.

The page name and IP address Google.de domain were transferred to another ISP 'Goneo Internet GmbH' in this grab, thereby causing confusion among the surfers and raising fury among company officials.

"The problem was fixed in a short space of time," Stefan Keuchel - spokesman for the U.S.-based company's German branch - said in a statement published in Techworld on 23 January 2007. Techworld gets its maximum revenues from online advertising.

"This has never happened to google.de and believe me, it will never happen again," confirmed Keuchel. However failed to nail down the miscreant who might have triggered the transfer. He said that the incident was being probed into.

Almost the entire process of web addresses is automated. Domain names keep expiring and allotted to new owners. In the same way, registration process of Google & its officers once again took place on 23 January 2007. But this time the registration carried 'Denic' as owner. Denic is a German agency involved in the distribution of domain names ending with two letters 'de'.

Keuchel refused to give any clue on what is the action plan of the company in the direction to prevent any such incidence in future. He said, "This is internal. But rest assured; there will be changes."

Obviously, this mess caused a bit of embarrassment for Google, since this is something that's never expected of a company having a market of around $150 billion. But thankfully the matter was resolved in time.

Google is now on the lookout to find out the root of the entire snag to ensure a secure future for the search engine.

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